Visitors!

We had some visitors last weekend -- Olivia's mom and aunt. We showed them some Bay Area fun.

From Lynn and Marilynn visit

We went back to Point Reyes because its so awesome. We saw harbor seal, elephant seals and whales -- again!

From Lynn and Marilynn visit

oh, and some deer too...

From Lynn and Marilynn visit

We swung by Muir Woods on the way home for some big trees:

From Lynn and Marilynn visit

thanks for the visit.

Harbin

California is a disconnect of traditional seasons. For instance, fall in here is a mish-mash of spring, summer and fall depending on the week, your location, and the time of day. Some of the leaves on some of the trees are turning yellow and orange, but this turning is no blast of color like one finds in Wisconsin or Colorado. There can be crisp days with blue skies and yellow leaves, just like a perfect autumn days. But these days are nearly as common in January or April or July. We've had rain, which is a part of fall as well. Yet, because its a little warmer here, and rain is the first significant precipitation since April, green grass is sprouting everywhere, like spring, in a place with cyclical seasons. Thus, while jogging across campus, I get confused, thinking its summer, then fall, then spring, in three separate steps.

Our weekend in Harbin was a perfect example of this strange phenomena. We saw blue skies, turning leaves, hot canyons and green grass.

We drove two hours north to a lonely canyon off a forgetten valley north of Calistoga. Tucked against the cliffs at the end of the canyon there is a hot springs retreat called Harbin.  Harbin Hot Springs comes complete with naked hippies and camping in a vegetarian, alcohol and drug free utopia of enlightenment. We camped there one night, soaked in the hot springs, did some reading in the sun, and relaxed before driving back to San Francisco through Napa Valley. Here are a few photos of our adventures:

Camping with the turkeys (you can't see the turkeys in this photo, but they're just to the right of the tent):

From Harbin Weekend

Fall colors:

From Harbin Weekend

Fall colors in Napa:

From Harbin Weekend

Vines turning red:

From Harbin Weekend

From Harbin Weekend

From Harbin Weekend

We stopped at Greystone for lunch:

From Harbin Weekend

yum.

And we did a little peeking at the wineries for old times sake:

From Harbin Weekend

Ikea Mash-ups

So Ikea-hacking was all the rage in, like 2006. Not to be outdone, we hacked our own Ikea table last weekend. Olivia pasted ticket stubs from our (and other's) adventures around the world. She covered the tickets with contact paper and then we poured EnviroTex Lite on the top. EnviroTex lite is the same stuff they use for bartops. Its pretty awesome. Now we have a new table, just in time for Thanksgiving.

From Ikea Mash-up

From Ikea Mash-up

Obama Street

I don't know if you heard, but there was an election last week. Check out the street sign outside Olivia's office on Bush and Larkin.

From obama

San Francisco Mountaineering

What to do on an unexpectedly sunny Sunday in November?

1. Walk down 24th St and get some Philz.

2. Walk over to Church St and relax in Dolores Park.

From Corona Heights

3. Walk over to the Castro. Climb a mountain.

From Corona Heights

From Corona Heights

From Corona Heights

From Corona Heights

4. Climb another mountain with nice view of the Golden Gate Bridge and the Pacific Ocean.

From Corona Heights

5. Walk down to Haight St for lunch.

From Corona Heights

6. Call it a day

Rain, right on!

The Bay Area had its first significant rain since sometime in April. It was a long time coming, and a welcome way to wake up on a Saturday. We're both looking forward to seeing the brown grass turn green over the coming months.

From Weekend cooking

What did we do on our rainy Saturday? We cooked. But we cooked with a twist.

The first thing we made was sourdough bread. I am particularly pleased with this sourdough because the yeast and lactobacilli I used to raise the dough were captured in my kitchen. I didn't use commercial yeast, I didn't get a starter from someone else. I just left flour mixed with water out on my counter top for a few days and waited for the yeast and lactobacilli in the air, and on the flour, to begin to ferment. Because I used local microbes, this bread is truly a taste of our home, of San Francisco, of fall. If I have a chance I want to isolate the rRNA from the bread to see if I can identify the populations of yeast of lactobacilli in the bread. But I doubt I'll have the time. However, I can go to the literature (I have) to see what others have found. A few (somewhat) interesting papers from a group at the University of Ghent interested in bacterial populations in bread ecosystems showed that while the populations of lactobacilli varied from bakery to bakery, they did not change significantly over time, suggesting the ecosystems in their bread systems were fairly stable. However, one thing they didn't test was how the sourdoughs change with season when starting from scratch, as I did a few weeks ago and propose doing again this winter or spring. That's something I think would be interesting. How does the taste of our bread change with the change in season? That is, how does the change in microbial life in the air of my kitchen affect the taste of my sourdough?

Anyway, enough of that, here is the bread:

From Weekend cooking

And here is one of the sandwiches we made using mozzarella we made from citric acid, whole milk, microbial rennet and heat:

From Weekend cooking

In addition to making sourdough and cheese, I've been making beer and have cabbage from our CSA fermenting downstairs. In a few weeks I hope to have enough food for a nearly-all fermented barbecue, with beer, sourdough bread and sauerkraut.